Saturday, July 30, 2011

Pearly-eye answer

10

Northern Pearly-eye Invasion

  While Eileen, my oldest, was registering for classes at Ohio University, I ditched the parent campus tour and resource fair (I graduated from OU with my masters, so whats the point?!) to go butterflying at The Ridges, which is on the otherside of the Hocking River from OU.  A very cloudy and overcast day, and butterfly activity was correspondingly poor.  In fact, for the first 45 minutes there, I saw more pets than butterflies (see sign below!).
  After two hours my butterfly total was roughly 20 and I must admit I was feeling quite disappointed.  Kept trying to remind myself of the old saying, "a bad day butterflying is better than a good day at work."  But then, with about a half hour left in my visit, things took a very dramatic turn for the better, initiated by the sighting of what had to be a freshly eclosed Red-banded Hairstreak.  Granted, I get excited about hairstreaks, but this guy was absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous.  Judge for yourself.
  Then about fifty yards past the hairstreak I encountered a Hackberry Emperor which was, quite possibly, the friendliest/most aggressive butterfly I have ever encountered.  He landed on every part of me imagineable.  Would bounce from my leg, to my shoulder, to my back, to my hand, to my head, back to my shoulder . . .  Well you get the idea.  Was hard to get his picture because he either a) wouldn't hold still or b) wanted to take the picture himself.  Finally got a good shot of him sitting on my hand.
  About another 50 yards down the trail I encountered a group of butterflies puddling.  Now, puddling butterflies is not that unusual, although I do not see that behavior as often in Ohio as I saw in Arizona.  But in this case, it was the species that was puddling.  Northern Pearly-eye!  I had never seen NPI's do that before.  I will put a picture below.  Try to guess how many NPI's in the image.  I will post a second image to the blog showing how many I see.
View of Ohio University from The Ridges

Add caption

Red-banded Hairstreak

Hackberry Emperor

How many Northern Pearly-eyes do you see?
  So, the first two hours of the day were among the most disappointing of the summer.  The last half hour was perhaps the most fun of the year.  Guess it says never give up!

Monday, July 18, 2011

Kitty Todd

Visited Kitty Todd Nature Preserve up near Toledo yesterday.  Had never been there before.  It was a little troubling in that there was zero signage to orient visitors.  I was later told that the preserve is actually closed on Sundays, but of course there was nothing there to tell me that.  Access was very easy, around fences, through openings in fences, etc.  FIgured if they didn't want me there they would've made greater effort to keep me out.
Well anyways, went there in search of Acadian Hairstreak and some new skippers.  Struck out on the hairstreak.  Bummer.  I do enjoy hairstreaks.  Did get some new skippers, although I am having to rely on others to help with the ID's.  I'm not real good with some of the skippers.  Troy Shively looked at pics and confirmed Black Dash and Northern Broken Dash.  Have another skipper that Troy and I originally thought might be Dion Skipper, but I did some google image searching and am now leaning towards Duke's SKipper.  Most of the pics of Dions that I found showed a white spot in the upper corner of the forewing which my bug doesn't have.  I have sent the pic on to BAMONA and will let them settle which it is.  For now, I am going to call it Duke's Skipper.
Also saw a butterfly that looked and behaved like Common Wood Nymph, but it was missing the characteristic big yellow forewing blotch.  When I got home last night I did some research to find that what I saw was the 'Northeastern' form of Common Wood Nymph.  Kinda disappointing, but interesting.
Yesterday was a good warm-up for the trip to AZ in September.  Round trip to Toledo was 389.9 miles.  Seven hours riding, three and a half hours butterflying and a half hour for lunch.  I am hoping to average 400 miles per day going to AZ.  Last time I rode out I average 500 miles a day and it was too much.  Too hard on the body, and I want to spend more time this time butterflying and visiting friends.  But wow, was my butt sore when I got home yesterday.  Am going to look into getting a beaded seat cover for the bike.  I hear that helps tremendously.

Northern Broken Dash

Duke's Skipper (or is it Dion Skipper)

Pretty flowers (Michigan Lily)

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Cox Arboretum, Dayton, Ohio

With the nice weather today I rode over to Dayton to the Cox Arboretum.  With lots of Red Cedar (Juniper) over there, I was in hopes of finding Juniper Hairstreak.  The trip did not take as long as I thought, only two and a half hours.  Saw some interesting things along the way, such as a big black and white St. Bernard dog sitting on the front steps of a small rural Methodist church.  Those Methodists are so innovation with their service opportunities.  Not sure if the dog was a greeter or an usher, but I am sure he made all visitors feel welcome.
  Also saw a guy chasing three pigs around his front yard with a broom or mop or something.  As I rode past I heard someone talking about their chinny chin chin, but not sure who it was.  I saw no wolves or little girls with curly blonde hair during the ride.  Pickaway County is always so entertaining!
  Cox is very nice, but from a butterfly perspective I was rather disappointed.  No Juniper Hairstreaks, despite lots of juniper.  I wish I had a dollar for every juniper I shook trying to scare something up.  I was also surprised by the lack of butterflies in general, despite a variety of habitat and loads of nectar.  Had a total of 16 species and 70 individuals, totals which would rank this site very slightly better than average.  Compare this to The Ridges in Athens County the Tuesday before which yielded 24 species, second place for the year, and a record number of individuals at 161.
  With that said though, I did add a new species today, Swarthy Skipper.  I did not get excited about it initially because I honestly thought I had already found a Swarthy this year, but as I reviewed my records when I got home, apparently I was wrong.
  Stopped at Calamus Swamp in Pickaway County on the way home.  Still very disappointing.  The dead raccoon is still on the boardwalk, only now he is reduced to a little fur and a pile of bones.  Calamus was no better with butterflies than it had been in June.  In June had six species and seven individuals, today had seven species and ten individuals.
Cox Arboretum

Inside butterfly house at Cox

Butterfly signage

Swarthy Skipper

Common Wood Nymph (sorry for the blur)

Pretty pic from our property in Hocking County.  American Copper with two Eastern-tailed Blues.
  All in all, slightly disappointing but a good day.  No rain, only one near death experience on the bike and 80 butterflies.  Good day!